The Global 30 share index has for the first time risen through the 5,200 level, a gain of 166 points over the last two weeks (3.3%), ending at 5,228 as of the close of New York trade on Thursday.
The gain is largely in the US and Europe, while the Japanese companies are conspicuous by their absence among the leaders. The Nikkei index has fallen by some 2% over the same period.
The US companies have been helped by the strength of their currency (the Global 30 is based in sterling), but the rising stocks have been broad based, ranging from chemical firms like Pfizer (+7.5%), media groups such as News Corp (+8.2%) and computer company Verizon (+5.8%).
The oil and commodity players have hardly featured, even with the oil price recovering from its lows in the second half of this week.
The biggest gain came from News Corp. Investors no longer seem to be worried by the large stake held by Liberty Media.
Instead the stock was cheered by the opening of 20th Century Fox's "Revenge of the Sith", breaking box office records, and the launch of the Fox Reality channel, devoted to showing repeat reality shows on satellite TV service, DirecTV.
On top of that, controlling shareholder Rupert Murdoch told his executives that he wanted more aggressive international growth, something likely to include expansion into the open air advertising markets in Turkey, the Ukraine and Russia.
Chinese focus
Pfizer is the second best performer. Its shares hit a low in February following the allegations that its Celebrex pain killer could in some circumstances cause heart attacks.
 Traders have enjoyed good performance in the last fortnight |
Its share price is up 20% since then. It still faces a crisis in two years when patents expire on drugs that produce 20% of its sales, but the market believes it is grappling with the problem.
It has released what it says are promising results to trials for its Stutent drug that may reduce advanced breast, lung and kidney cancer.
Pfizer says it plans to introduce 20 new drugs to the Chinese market in coming years, despite having its Viagara patent withdrawn by the authorities there; and chief executive Frank McKinnell has said his $4bn in cost reduction will not require cuts in the sales force.
Microsoft has managed to gain 7% over the last two weeks, despite some alarming news from the European Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, who has given the group until the end of the month to comply with remedies imposed for violating antitrust laws - or face fines of up to $5m a day.
Microsoft seems unperturbed and investors are instead concentrating on the approaching launch of the new Xbox 360 video game machine.
It has spent some $12bn since 2000 developing it, and lost $2.4bn on the project in the last two years.
Now chief executive Robbie Bach has said it will turn a profit by 2007. Crucially it's coming out this year ahead of the new offerings from Sony and Nintendo, due for release in 2006.
Wind power
Among the big gainers in Europe were Siemens (up 5.1%) and BASF (up 4.1%). BASF's fortunes reflect those of the German chemical industry generally - its rival Bayer is up 5% in the same period.
The German chemicals industry association, VCI, has raised its forecast for price increases and industry sales for the full year.
Meanwhile, Siemens told a manufacturing summit in New York it expects 12-14% revenue growth in its US business, powered by strong demand for medical equipment and automation projects. A week earlier the company said it believes wind energy is going to be its biggest growth driver in coming years, delivering 20% growth a year until 2008.
Coincidentally, General Electric's GE Energy unit said this week that it expects wind energy revenues of more than $2bn in 2005, and a tripling of orders and commitments since it started business in 2002.
It accounted for about 11.4% of GE's total revenue in 2004. GE gained 5.2% on the fortnight, contributing 28 points to the Global 30's overall gain.
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